The prospects of using the properties of inorganic solids with infinite structures in combination with the spectral, magnetic and chemical characteristics of co-ordination and organometallic compounds are reviewed with particular reference to their potential applications in the electronics, sensors and optoelectronic fields.
Solid state inorganic chemistry provides a great variety of thermally stable and optically transparent host materials which have sufficiently large cavities for the incorporation of small molecules. These include zeolites with either spherical or cylindrical three dimensional cavities, layered compounds with infinite two-dimensional spaces and a variable third dimension, and pillared materials with intersecting one-dimensional channels. These structures may be chosen on the basis of a particular function and a second introduced via the incorporation of molecules in the cavities. Alternatively, they may be viewed as neutral structural materials and the multifunctionality can be introduced via the incorporation of molecules with different spectral or chemical properties.
As guest materials co-ordination and organometallic compounds have the following properties which are important in the context of multifunctionality: the ability to co-ordinate small molecules such as O2, SO2, H2 reversibly, distinct reversible electrochemical properties, electronic transitions which show an enormous variation in extinction coefficients and oscillator strengths, polarised spectral transition and electrical conductivity properties.
